MissionReport Year ended 31 2022march “Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power” Psalm 145:4 (NLT)
Myles MacBean, National Director, Scripture Union England and Wales
As we continue to adapt to a new sense of normality this year, I am reminded of how God can use our ordinary lives to fulfil his extraordinary plan. We are so privileged to be able to play our part in this together.
Over the next few pages, I hope you will be as encouraged as I am to discover just some of the amazing work that God has done over the past year, and the huge strides that we were able to make together towards reaching more of the 95% of children and young people who aren’t in church (‘the 95’).
Reaching the 95 is a challenging but vital task. Your support has enabled us to continue to support churches who say ‘yes!’ to stepping out… We are excited to see more and more churches partnering with us in our Revealing Jesus mission framework. It’s such a privilege to be able to support them as they reach out, make connections and journey into faith with the 95 in their communities.
These Faith Guides come from 160 churches across England and Wales.
By the end of the year, 218 people had registered to be Faith Guides – that’s double the number at the same point in 2021!
Your support during the year has enabled us to recruit new Mission Pioneers to fire up churches to mission, and coach and support Faith Guides in their vital role. Join us in praying that this amazing work will see such growth over the next year and
Onbeyond!the ground
Find out more at su.org.uk/RevealingJesus
Thank you so much for your unwavering support across this season. Your constant readiness to be involved through faithful prayer, volunteering and giving means we can continue to move forward, proclaiming louder the good news of the gospel to the coming generations.
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During the year, we launched 3 new multi-media resource collections, exclusively available to Faith Guides in the online Faith Guide Hub:
Helping Faith Guides Reveal Jesus to the 95 through the creative arts Helping the 95 andforGod’sdiscoverheartmercyjustice
I DON’T GO TO CHURCH BUT...
We work alongside like-minded organisations to help multiply mission opportunities and ensure even more children and young people have the opportunity to discover Jesus. We have 66 Mission Partners, employing 125 workers (and many volunteers) between them.
Our teams of Mission Enablers went out on a tour of churches, helping them explore the opportunity they have to reach a generation who are increasingly open to faith. We hosted 50 events with 500+ people joining us at venues across England and Wales from MISSION PARTNERS
Excitingly, this year we also embarked on a new kind of partnership, joining forces with the Church of England’s Diocese of Durham and Southampton City Mission on Revealing Jesus. These partnerships will make it possible for even more churches to benefit from the support of the Revealing Jesus mission framework.
over 140 churches. After the events, we had 99 follow-up conversations about future mission support opportunities. it’s your move
This great resource has been helping children take the daunting step to secondary school for over 20 years now, impacting the life of millions of young people! This year we sold 13,688 copies to just under 2,000 individuals, churches and mission partners. Resources
The Faith Guide Hub Designed to help children find bigplacetheirinGod’sstory
Each of these collections is designed to support Faith Guides as they walk with children and young people through all 4 stages of the Faith journey (Connect, Explore, Respond and Grow).
Over 9,000 copies were ordered for use at Easter events. The animated version was viewed nearly 2,500 times.
Our amazing Bible game app continues to enable children to meet with Jesus in exciting ways. This year, we estimate that over 280,000 new players downloaded the app and a new Spanish language version was also released (Guardianes de Ancora), making the game potentially available to over 0.5 billion Spanish speakers worldwide!
Halloween: Jesus is The Light? 26,230 copies were ordered by 607 people. The accompanying animation was viewed 1,055 times.
Seasonal resources
BBC Songs of Praise also featured the resource in an episode.
Christmas: God Became Like Me? 318 individuals, churches and mission partners ordered 18,910 copies between them.
HOLIDAYS AND EVENTS
Easter: Jesus Died For Me?
GuardiansVOLUNTEERINGofAncora
After a year of not being able to hold any in-person events due to Covid-19, we were able to run a mixed programme featuring online and in-person holidays and missions. This included 22 covid-secure in-person holidays, day camps and missions and 16 online events.Welove our amazing volunteers! This year there were 1,316 known opportunities for people to volunteer, which is equivalent to 2,287 working weeks or 49 full-time staff. Without them, much of what was achieved would not have been possible.
The 95 Campaign During the year, 3,232 signed up to the 95 Campaign, to say ‘yes!’ to playing their part in reaching the 95. That takes the total campaign members to 15,009!
Mission through sport
Training Sports continues to be an amazing way of connecting with the 95. Looking ahead, we hope to appoint 3 new Sports Mission Pioneers to help churches make the most of the opportunities sports provide. This year we launched our FREE Back of the Net resource to help churches run a football-flavoured, faith-filled event. Our sports mission cards also proved popular again. 111 packs of Created2play cards were sold, along with 98 packs of Sweaty Church Club Cards.
Social Media Social media continued to be a great way to engage people in Scripture Union’s mission. By the end of the year, we had 7,182 people following our Facebook page and 2,114 Instagram followers. Across both platforms we shared 657 different posts and received 18,796 interactions. Part of something bigger Scripture Union is a movement made up of supporters, volunteers, sta , mission partners and many more –all passionate about reaching the 95 with the good news of Jesus… THE
During the year we ran 7 online training sessions to encourage and equip churches to reach out to children and young people in their communities. Over 450 people attended these sessions.
Helping churches in Wales reconnect with their communities Catching the Bible bug Celebrating a return to the beach – stories from the summer
Getting into God’s Word
Connecting You More than 19,000 people receive our supporter and prayer magazine each quarter – some in print, some by email. We are so thankful for everyone who prays for the work of Scripture Union!
Global connections
Influencers We were also partners in a joint piece of research exploring the importance of peer-to-peer evangelism in under-18s finding faith. The results were published in June 2022 and will help us further shape the Revealing Jesus mission framework.
We partnered with other mission agencies in an important piece of qualitative research looking into faith formation in Gen Z (with additional quantitative research planned for this autumn). The results will help us shape future opportunities for young people to explore the Christian faith.
We love helping people read the Bible every day through 12,915 active subscriptions to our Bible reading guides – Daily Bread and Encounter with God. Around 7,000 people receive Word Live by email each day.
Learning and growing After workshops with church leaders from ethnic minority churches in key cities, we have launched projects with 6 groups of partners to test the Revealing Jesus framework, understand the effectiveness of our resources, and build new relationships in these relatively new contexts for SU. Your support also helps us plan for the future, ensuring we remain relevant and keep our finger on the pulse…
Scripture Union England and Wales is one of over 130 SU International movements active in around 120 countries – helping to share God’s love right around the globe!
Committing to the future Faith formation in Gen Z
you Connecting Winter IN THIS EDITION
Revealing Jesus: The Conference Over 200 Faith Guides, mission partners, volunteers and staff attended our Revealing Jesus conference in November, coming together to be encouraged and equipped in reaching the 95.
£727,000 publishingCommercial £318,000 activitiesInternational £209,000 Advocacy This is a summary of Scripture Union’s financial activities for the year ended 31 March 2022, extracted from the full Trustee’s Report and Financial Statements which have been audited. A full statement of our financial activities can be found in our Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements, a copy of which can be obtained by contacting us on 01908 856135. None of the impact outlined in this report would have been possible without the generosity of our supporters. If you helped financially or covered SU’s work in prayer, THANK YOU – this success is yours too. Could you give a gift to ensure even more is possible next year? We are so thankful to you for your gifts, time and prayers that make a huge difference, helping us provide many more children and young people with opportunities to explore the Bible, respond to Jesus and Grow in faith. Thank you so much for your continued support. Here’s an overview of the money we received during the 2021/22 financial year, and the ways in which it was spent: To su.org.uk/donateonline,Donatevisit Finances £3,483,000 Donations and legacies £791,000 Publishing sales and royalties £57,000 Holidays and missions £69,000 Other, investmentsincluding £2,470,000 Face-to-face mission (including holidays and missions) £353,000 Content creation £456,000 Cost of raising funds Total £4,400,000income Total£4,533,000Expenditure
Scripture Union is a registered charity (no. 213422) and a limited company (registered no. 00039828). Registered office: Trinity House Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF. Registered in England and Wales. With 95% of all under-18s not in church, the task of reaching them is huge. But so too is the opportunity! www.scriptureunion.org.uk Thank you! Your prayers, financial support and volunteer hours make the work of Scripture Union possible. You are equipping hundreds of churches to introduce children and young people to Jesus, opening channels that will encourage them to flourish and grow into all that God has planned for Wethem.honour the impact that you are making, and we are so thankful for all that you do.
